


Wasteland Jukebox

by Livia_LeRynn



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: 30 Days of Writing, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Cuddling, Drinking, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Inspired by Music, Miss Giddy's Piano, Missing Scene, Multi, Past Relationship(s), Songfic, but the apocalypse ain't fun yo, implied prostitution, polyamorous family, queer family structures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-06-30 15:18:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 16,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15754374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Livia_LeRynn/pseuds/Livia_LeRynn
Summary: Here you will find a collection of short stories following different characters as music gets them through their days before, during and after the Fury Road Revolution.Even though the world fell, life is still what happens while you are listening to music.  What songs survive the apocalypse? What does a revolutionary hum to herself?  What treasures await in a long buried box of records?  What notes rise from the piano in the Vault?





	1. It's the End of the World as We Know It

**Author's Note:**

> This volume of short stories owes a debt to [ Once-a-Polecat ](https://once-a-polecat.tumblr.com/) for suggesting a 30 day writing challenge and to [ Station Eleven ](https://www.amazon.com/Station-Eleven-Emily-John-Mandel-ebook/dp/B00J1IQUYM) for being the book I finished reading right before I started this.
> 
> Chapter summaries (note, not all of these have been posted yet):  
> Ch 1: K.T. Concannon and the other soon to be Vuvalini flee the collapse of Adelaide to start a new life.  
> Ch 2: Mary Jabassa comforts her infant daughter.  
> Ch 3: Three nuclear missiles head for the east coast of Australia while Colonel Joe Moore plans his escape.  
> Ch 4: K.T. Concannon and the Vuvalini thrive in their new home.  
> Ch 5: Young Max plays with toy cars with his father.  
> Ch 6: K.T. treats Mary to rowdy fireside seduction while Furiosa looks on.  
> Ch 7: Max and Jessie take a trip to the beach  
> Ch 8: The Organic Mechanic introduces Joe to a feral child with a talent for music.  
> Ch 9: Miss Giddy remembers how to play the piano.  
> Ch 10: Dog finds a human.  
> Ch 11: Ace and Furiosa work on a car.  
> Ch 12: Miss Giddy tells Cheedo about mermaids.  
> Ch 13: Nux and Slit meet The King  
> Ch 14: Ace sends Furiosa to the sparring pit to test her mettle and metal  
> Ch 15: Miss Giddy finds a fellow insomniac in the Vault's new bodyguard  
> Ch 16: The Wives and co. prepare a play for Joe  
> Ch 17: Furiosa gives herself a haircut  
> Ch 18: Ace walks home  
> Ch 19: Valkyrie tried to reconnect with an old friend  
> Ch 20: A hard day in the canyon  
> Ch 21: And the night that follows  
> Ch 22: The girls rebuild  
> Ch 23: Max finds a song for the road  
> Ch 24: Journey of a music box  
> Ch 25: Capable has a quiet moment  
> Ch 26: Furiosa gives Toast a shooting lesson  
> Ch 27: Max goes to Bartertown  
> Ch 28: The premier of Radio Free Citadel  
> Ch 29: Max and Furiosa sneak away to the garage  
> Ch 30: A visit to the ocean

The beat-up pick-up bounces along the pock-marked road, jostling its carefully packed cargo and stirring up clouds of dust. K.T. Concannon hums to herself in a futile attempt to distract herself from the beginnings of car sickness. It's an usual feeling for her after all her years of travel. She is only twenty-two, but she’s already crossed oceans and continents, New York to New Orleans to New South Wales and finally Adelaide, never once had a problem with motion sickness, at least not while sober anyway. She’s sober now, too sober really, dried out, hung quite literally over a goddess fuckin pit of god fuckin despair. 

K.T.’s boots are stiff and heavy on her feet. She shifts her weight to uncross her legs and let blood back into the arteries that have closed off out of sleep. The pick-up hits one more good bump before the road gives up on pavement entirely and switches over to simple gravel. K.T. swallows the stomach acid she is starting to doubt is caused by carsickness. 

“You right, girlie?” asked Professor Fang from the front seat. “You’re looking awful green.” 

K.T. nods and belches, her jaws clamped shut. More acid. More sweat and chills and an insistent feeling of _up, up, up_. “Fuck. Pull over.”

For a moment the world was nothing but K.T.’s rebelling stomach, her watering eyes, her running nose, her quick breaths snuck between wretches. It feels good in a way, good to feel something, to be nothing but bodily impulses. Then she dry heaves when the moment is over but she isn’t quite ready to return to ordinary sensation.

“Sitting sideways in that little seat can’t be helping. You can trade spots with Tommy,” Professor Fang say as she tugs a canteen from beneath the punching dummy and offers K.T. some water. “He did his job. We’re past the city. Move to the front.”

“I’m not carsick.” K.T. says between sips of water. She still feels heavy and shaky and wrong in so many uncountable ways. “I’m world-sick… I thought I could do this.”

To think this drive used to only take a few hours… the world isn’t dead; it is expanding by the moment, stretching out its folds and unfurling its tendrils. All the paved roads breaking apart are just the earth sloughing away its cocoon. Or maybe its more like a beast gone feral, shedding civilsation like last season's coat. 

“It’s the end of the world as we know it…” K.T. almost laughs as the old lyrics leave her mouth, “And I feel fine.”

The words don’t make her feel any less sick. She looks up and stares right past Professor Fang at the landscape around them. It strikes her as funny that every time she’s ventured out this way before, there was always a part of her that would pretend the world had already ended. The sweeping vistas of yellow-red earth would reach out to her, and she would embrace them. She and her companions would sing as if they were free.

“No worries.” Professor Fang says over her shoulder before hauling Tommy Torso’s pink, rubbery flesh from the passenger seat. “I’ve been shitting bricks all week.” 

Even separated from its base, the punching dummy is heavy and awkward. Luckily, the Professor is in sifu mode now, using every gram of her slight frame to its fullest effect, spouting just enough personal detail to make her wisdom accessible. K.T. can’t think of anyone she’d rather ride shotgun with on this road trip to the end of the world. They’ve gotten lucky so far, or maybe Tommy is just good at his job. Either way, Sifu Fang has‘t needed to use her skills, and K.T. hadn’t needed to test Fang’s teachings. The wasteland stretches before them, almost taunting. 

By now the next car in their convoy had stopped behind them on the side of what passed for the road even though there wasn’t really a need to pull over. Professor Fang flashed them a thumbs up, but they still wait. “We gotta go,” she says, calmly but firmly. “Don’t want to be out past sundown.” When K.T. doesn’t move she coaxes with, “We didn’t start the fire… It’s been always burning since the world’s been turning.”

K.T. hums in echo, not changing her tune, “It’s the end of the world as we know it… I feel fine…” She stands, the weight of her boots holding her upright. "Something, something, something, Furies breathing down your neck," she mutters as she accepts Fang's outstretched hand and hauls herself into the front seat.

K.T. regrets not having the forethought to look up more of the words back when there was an Internet to check. She knows the singer shouts, “Leonard Bernstein!” at some point. She supposes the Internet is still there, sitting on servers somewhere. Her father used to say they Internet was immortal. Everything ever posted stayed there forever, even when it was deleted it was only covered up with more data, like bones upon bones, dust upon dust. 

“Turn and face the strange: ch-ch-changes…” Sifu Fang gives the steering wheel a crisp turn. The wasteland swallows them with all its yellow and orange urgency: “Time may change me, but I can’t trace time…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs:  
> [ 1 ](https://open.spotify.com/track/2oSpQ7QtIKTNFfA08Cy0ku?si=g63Znjg4QWiWDTqeYGwHeg)
> 
>  
> 
> [ 2 ](https://open.spotify.com/track/0T0O7i7rTIYIZGx9mJonNh?si=UQJ1kAo4QZGEM6ZqQWTqdQ)
> 
>  
> 
> [ 3 ](https://open.spotify.com/track/5PGYWv9Xp4IraLSDs8h1bY?si=3aMhGVeVS6yz3IpeLaECIw)


	2. Time After Time

Mary Jabassa sets her infant down on the swaddling cloth. The child is and new in a way she doubts anything except a baby will ever be again. Already Mary can feel the wear the last few days have added to her own skin, her bones, her soul. But for now the morning is quiet, her baby fed and burped and now drowsy, the rest of camp still groggy in their tents. 

Mary tucks the fabric around her daughters feet and her tiny arms around her tiny body. The swaddling is supposed to mimic the womb, or so the books say, supposed to make the baby feel just as protected as she has for the past nine months. It seems a bit like delaying the inevitable, Mary supposes, but she’s already thrust her daughter from dark and the wet to the bright and the dry; the least she can do is make the change just a little less abrupt. The baby starts to fuss, probably from being disturbed. No one asks to be born. 

Mary shushes her softly as she finishes the swaddling. “Shh, we’re home; no worries, we’re home.”

She conjures a smile and the feelings of warmth all the books say she is supposed to feel. Her hormones are doing their job, changing her from the inside out, but she still has doubts. In this time, in this world, how can she ever be enough? Just as sure as she feels herself swelling to meet this new burden, she knows she will collapse under its weight -eventually. The world is no place for the small and soft and perfect with ten finger, ten toes, and not even a single tooth. She holds her baby to her chest and breaths in her scent while she is still untouched by dust or ash or rot.

Then Mary does something else that mothers have been doing as long as there have been mothers: she whispers into wispy, downy hair: “If you’re lost, you can look, and you will find me… time after time.” She closes her eyes as they moisten. “If you fall I will catch you. I will be waiting, time after time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: [](https://open.spotify.com/track/1NuItCmUMhowDQsvMfZmrb?si=zDFXCCVGTDaymj-kGXWuWw)


	3. Rocket Man

It all starts with a blip on a screen. It’s nothing in and of itself, a few pixels controlled by lines of code. It goes unnoticed for some inconsequential amount of time while a vintage disk plays even older songs. One blip, two blips, now three, tracing the curve of the earth.

Then someone notices and calls for the watch lead. More people make more calls until Colonel Joe Moore himself is squinting at the screen. 

Everyone is silent, so lost in those blips that no one has bothered to turn off the music: “And I think it’s gonna be a long, long time…”

“One for us, one for Canberra, one for Melbourne,” announces the watch lead without nearly enough gravitas. 

“You want me to phone it up?” asks his second in command.

“I’ll do it,” says the Colonel. “Until then, this doesn’t leave this room. We don’t want to start a panic.”

The song recording plays on, “Burning out his fuse out there alone….”

If the display is accurate, there should still be a few hours left, time to get the Prime Minister to a bunker, time to run for the hills so long as the freeways don’t get to crowded. The Colonel follows the dotted lines back to a spot in the lost territories of Pakistan and imagines the fuckers there throwing a party to welcome the new world the morning will bring. 

“I’m a rocket man.”

Then Colonel turns to leave but then he stops and lingering in the doorway says, "Go be with your people boys, get them out if you can. Advance Australia.”

Then the Colonel closes first both the inner and outer doors and retrieves his phone from the locker. His hands shake as he dials home. “Scottie, wake your mum and grab the go bag. We’re going camping.” 

He still finds that same old song stuck in his head while he signs out a ute. He hums to himself while he writes Alice Springs in the destination block. He sings to himself as the guards wave him past, “I’m not the man they think I am at home, oh no, no, no…” Then he’s off as three missiles race past the equator, one that will hit Sydney, one that will hit Canberra, and one that will fall harmlessly into the waves off the coast of Melbourne. Joe’s still singing to himself as he steals a glance at the fading stars in the brightening morning sky. “I’m a rocket man…” His voice fades out as he dials the Brigadier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: [](https://open.spotify.com/track/3gdewACMIVMEWVbyb8O9sY?si=xBYsNSrgQgKsQ3m4PA1yRA)


	4. I'm Feelin' Good

K.T. Concannon ties her swag to the back of her bike and checks that all her newly acquired cargo is balanced. She takes another few gulps of water before she’s off, shooting trails of sand behind her. It’s early enough that the sun at her back is still gentle. The crows are are far off in the distance and not likely to be a bother. The rest of her band is ahead, and catching up will be her pleasure. 

“Birds flying high, you know how I feel,” K.T. sings over the rhythm of her engine vibrating in her chest. “Sun in the sky, you know how I feel.”

She squeezes her clutch as she switches to a higher gear then rolls on the accelerator. The dust cloud behind her grows. She pulls her goggles over her eyes and her scarf over her nose.

“And this old world is a new world and a good world for me,” she sings in a breathy huff to keep the fabric from clinging. 

She pulls up beside her party, in the rearmost spot of their riding formation. Each woman is practically dwarfed by all her purchases: weapons, tools, medicines, a few treasured morsels of Before foods like coffee and chocolate. Their crops and wine have sold well, fetched good prices. 

More importantly, not a single woman had been harmed or even harassed at the market despite the boost making one of the Green Witches feel fear always seems to give a man’s ego. There’s something about the way the Vuvalini stand even when their rifles are in the custody of the market guards that makes especially the most cocksure bogans shake in their boots, and fuck if they’ll let anyone see. But yesterday’s merchants were headsure and steady, the guards reliable blokes more interested in extra grapes than any other type of favours. It’s enough to make her wonder if there might be some hope left after all.

K.T. whoops at the others in her band as she moves in, shooing a novice back from her usual spot. She pulls down her scarf to yell, “It’s a new dawn. It’s a new day. It’s a new life for me.” Then she pulls it up again and adds to herself, “And I’m feelin’ good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: [ I'm Feelin' Good ](https://open.spotify.com/track/1VKsbTJ78G5bnfyoPz46LA?si=kykDcz1UTRyzN9geic4pUA)


	5. Waltzing Matilda

Jack Patansky holds up a metal toy car as he examines its paint job. He hardly considers himself an artist, but he has to admit that he’s proud of his work. He smiles at how being a father is bringing the creativity out of him. He dips his brush in yellow enamel and paints a pair of tail lights beaming out of the car’s black boot. 

“Good as new, eh Max?” he asks his son. 

The boy shrugs and goes back to rolling a toy truck along the floor. It’s black as well, or at least it was before Max sent it on an adventure through the flower box. Now there’s dusty soil clinging to the sides and the wheels. It leave a trail of dirt behind on the worn hardwood. 

Jack rolls the car against his fingers to check the rotation of the wheels. Then he blows the tail lights dry as if they are a pair of candles. Satisfied that they are dry enough, he makes the car roll up to Max’s truck with all the tentative bravado of an old friend. 

“Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda. You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me,” Jack sings in invitation. What more would a car want than to drive on forever, as far as the road will go and back again? “Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda. You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you catch how I snuck in one of my most beloved headcanons?
> 
> People like to see that Rockatansky sounds like a made up name even though it isn't. I say it can still be a blended name. Headcanon: Max's original surname is Patansky. Rockatansky is that blended with Jessie's original surname of Rockwell.


	6. Africa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Witness the most ridiculously campy and self-indulgent thing I have ever written (and made public).

It’s a cool night, perfect for a fire. The Vuvalini are gathered with skin drums in the laps and under their arms. Furiosa is curled up with her father who has returned with the other men to help with the autumn harvest. He sings along with the hearth songs while he braids her hair. She sings too, making up the words when she doesn’t know them. 

Her mother Mary is pouring the season’s young wine into cups and wavering over whether or not Furiosa is old enough to try some. Her father Ollie shrugs, bark-coloured curls still between his fingers; what harm can it do? Mary quips that old enough for wine is too old to get her hair braided, to which Furiosa’s father responds by tossing his own hair adorned with the plaits Furiosa has given him. 

Furiosa is roughly fourteen years old and already starting to wonder if she is too old for many things. Her toys have been passed to other children, and she has even been initiated with an Initiate Mother and everything. K.T. would let her try the wine, of that Furiosa is sure.

K.T. Concannon is across the fire pit, in close conversation with Grandmother Fang, and giving Mary furtive glances through the smoke. Mary smirks back and then pours a little more wine into Ollie’s cup.

“Let her try some of yours.” Mary offers as she passes the wineskin onward, “She probably won’t like it.” She passes the filled cups to Ollie and his partner Zed. Then she sips her own, watching K.T. over the steel rim as the wine stains her lips red. 

Ollie doesn’t even take a sip. “Here you go Furi; I’ll drink whatever you don’t.”

“Bottoms up,” Zed says with a laugh before diving into his own cup. 

The wine smells sour and familiar, like the sweaty twinge the air will likely take on the next morning. It’s not particularly appetising, but Furiosa is particularly stubborn. She takes a sip and keeps her face stone-firm while she forces it down. “It’s good,” she says. 

“You little liar,” Ollie laughs.

“Hey.” Zed stands and leans to face her. “I think she’s telling the truth. I think she should get to finish it.”

Furiosa feels her face growing hot, and the adults erupt into laughter. She raises the cup as if trying to hide behind it. Even the drumming stops, and for a single, torturous instant, Furiosa thinks the entire camp might be looking at her. 

K.T. stands, and Grandmother Fang alone strikes her drum: _dum-dun-dun dun-dun-dun-dum._. Ollie joins next with a quick succession of taps: _Tt-td td-td, tt-td td-td…_

K.T.’s voice is a strong and broad as ever. “I hear the drums echoing tonight…”

Whispered voices flicker around the fire pit, some of excitement, some of recognition, but a single glance from Grandmother Fang hushes them. K.T. ‘s face seems to glow in the light of the flames, and her hair, worn loose and round, looks like a smoke cloud. Her eyes glimmer.

“I stopped an old man in the way, hoping to find some long forgotten words or ancient melodies. He turned to me as if to say…”

Then Grandmother Fang and the Grandmothers from the other clans call out in unison: “Hurry girl, it’s waiting their for you!” before erupting into giggles.

K.T. steps closer to the fire, close enough to singe, and she’s looking right and Mary who can’t seem to decide if she’s entranced or mortified. “It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you. There’s nothing that a hundred or more could ever do.” K.T. circles the fire to approach Mary and raises her arms only to slowly lower them, fingers trailing. “I bless the rains down in Africa. I bless the rains down in Africa.”

Furiosa doesn’t know Africa, but she knows rains and the wild dogs that come next, and all the frightening things in the world K.T. is promising to battle to make it rain for her mother. K.T. then approaches Furiosa and sings the same promise. Furiosa smiles shyly as she raises the wine cup in offering. 

By now other drums and voices have joined in, giving K.T. and opportunity for a sip and a whisper: “Take note Furi.” She juts her chin at where Valkyrie is sitting with her own mothers across the fire. “This is how you win a woman’s heart.” Then she takes another sip before singing again: “It’ll take some time to do the things we never have…” as she saunters over to Mary who downs her own cup before rising to meet her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: [ Africa - original ](https://open.spotify.com/track/0TBbk62VYwmuf4RDu31jZF?si=ecMzNwfzS-yHCs7rNB4qPQ)  
> [ And a cute Vuvalini-sounding cover ](https://open.spotify.com/track/6kYkvQw5p0S5Z3Ra9aY4PY?si=ASKod9bcQEO_hkKWrRSpjw)


	7. I'm Yours

Jessie’s curls bounce as she shimmies; the soft cotton of her dress rustles as she shifts her weight back and forth. Her eyes are on Max, and they catch the last of the daylight. Her heels press into the sand. The tide rolls in and out, reaching for them. Water licks at her toes; the air smells like salt. 

She grabs Max by the hand and sings, “Before my cool done run out, I’ll be giving it my bestest….” She tugs him up from the mound of sand he’s built for a seat. “And nothing’s gonna stop me but divine intervention.”

Max stands, a bit wobbly from the beer that’s just now hitting him. He hasn’t had much, but he’s young, seventeen or thereabouts, which is much younger here than it is anywhere else the on the continent. He’s already killed a man, but that isn’t much these days. In short, his eyes are the widest and brightest they will ever be. 

Jessie is a little older, a few months that she’s keen to keep him from forgetting. She’s killed a man as well, two actually, but she doesn’t let that dampen her spirits. Right now, with the wind in her hair and the sea at her feet, she’s not thinking of the world as it is but dreaming of the world as it could be. There is still fun to be had, still songs to be sung on the beach while you dig a hole for your reused bottle filled with the beer your neighbour made in his garage. 

There’s still time for awkward head wobbles and shoulder bumps as she sings, “Please don’t, please don’t, please don’t, there’s no need to complicate…”

Maybe she’ll refill the bottle with poetry when it’s empty, not to send out to sea like people did before there were more bottles than fish. Maybe she’ll give it to Max, and he’ll hide it under his pillow beside his machete. 

Jessie spins as she belts, “Cuz our time is short -this, oh this, oh this is our fate.” She’s a good dancer, with sure feet, but the sand is unforgiving; her toes tangle and she falls into Max’s arms. “I’m yours,” she laughs, her teeth and eyes white in the starlight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: [ I'm Yours ](https://open.spotify.com/track/1va4PrgT1SwY7rk8yZFmk1?si=F1Hr5BBgRaiBBarZWwkxKQ) IDK why I like covers so much; maybe a song being covered is evidence of its future longevity. I also like to give you a sense of how the song sounds in my head, including the vocal quality and instrumentation where I can.


	8. The Immigrant Song

The boy is small, scared, and mostly feral. He doesn’t say much. Instead he rattles his cage and beats at the bars so the clang of metal echoes against the stone walls. 

Joe Moore, once Colonel, folds his arms impatiently; he doesn’t see what’s so special about this runt. “What’s wrong with his face?”

The Organic Mechanic shrugs. “Nothing unusual. Just wears a mask that works as good as any muzzle.” He must sense the warlord’s mood because he starts to shuffle his feet. “Pick a song.”

“What?” 

“That’s not just racket he’s making; kid’s a musical prodigy.”

Joe listens closer, and indeed, there are two rhythms, one in the cage shaking and another in the way the boy rattles its bars. He counts the repetitions; they are even and crisp. They might be the marking of feet or the pounding of drums. One warrior works best in silence, but an army, no an army needs a current, a pulse to flow through and unite the troops.

His dawning understanding must show on his face because the Organic says again, “Pick a song,” this time with a sharper urgency, an excitement. “No need to name it even, just sing it.”

Joe hasn’t sung in ages and was never particularly skilled. He even finds the concept a bit degrading. He scans his mind for anything not some ridiculously mundane child song, something worthy, something useful even… He hums a long and lifting note, “Mm-uhm-uhm-mm.”

The boy is suddenly quiet. 

Joe tries again, this time letting his mouth open ever-so slightly, “Aah-aa-aa-Aah.”

Then while Joe is silently cursing this whole exercise, the boy shakes his cage again, this time with both hands, “Sh-huh-huh-sh.”

“Uh-huh,” says Organic. “Go on.”

“Duh-duh-dud-dd-duh-dud-dd-duh-duh-duh…” Joe starts, and then the others joins, first Organic adding worlds, “Where the midnight sun and the hotsprings flow…” and then the boy, shaking and beating along.

Every sound is echoing off the stone wall, building and blurring with each bounce. If the boy’s cage is his instrument, the Citadel underbelly is his true prison; he and his music need the vastness of the wastes.

Joe shouts, “So the kid knows classic rock,” which isn’t exactly impossible but rather unlikely given the child’s age. Organic himself only knows it because he had the good fortune of growing up in Melbourne before ending up as apprentice to the prior Organic. 

“Or is he just…” Organic stops to pry apart the racket round them. “No….” He joins the song, “Something, something, something, oar… Our only goal will be the western shore. Aah-aa-aa-Aah.” He laughs, “He knows it better than I do.” He laughs again.

Joe nods and almost smiles at the music washing over him. Then he lets his gaze wander around the bloodshed. Most of its inhabitants appear unaffected except for a single, sick WarBoy, a moment ago slumped and sullen, now reanimated as he drums against his thighs.

“Just think of the possibilities,” says Organic.

“I am. I am.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: [ The Immigrant Song ](https://open.spotify.com/track/78lgmZwycJ3nzsdgmPPGNx?si=Hvl7dmGkRfm9XOSX7Hvckg)


	9. Kookaburra

The piano is a gift for the girls, but none of them have a clue what to do with it. At first Jennifer Gideon hates it or at least the idea of it, the same way she hates the name Miss Giddy, the name m _He_ gave to her. She likes the name when the girls say it, how it bounces off their tongues. When they say it she can almost forget its source. She supposes that eventually she’ll forget the source of the piano. 

The girl He named Durable eyes it with suspicion as she does most things. She won’t touch it. The girl He named Promise asks about it, and Jennifer reluctantly pokes at the white and black keys. There’s no reason it should go unplayed. It may very well be the last of its kind in the whole world. 

It outlasts the girl He named Durable, who once wrote her real name for Jennifer in a defiant whisper of chalk before wiping it away: Furiosa. She loses another pregnancy and is given to the War Boys. She promises Jennifer she will fight her way home, and Jennifer believes her, or at least wants to. 

That night Jennifer tests the keys of the piano. She pokes at them methodically, noting the few that work well, the many that need tuning, and the few that only whisper sound if at all. Promise watches in silence. The other girls pay no attention.

When Promise births a daughter, Jennifer thinks of songs about birds that laugh and stars that twinkle while Promise nurses the baby. Jennifer’s fingers move over the keys in a simple pattern as if she is still a school girl herself with her teacher standing over her shoulder to watch the angles of her wrists. 

“Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree…” Promise sings softly. 

“You know this song?”

“Mm-hm, keep going.” So Jennifer does and adds a harmony line with her left hand. “Merry, merry kind of the bush is he…”

Jennifer smiles like the name He gave her implies. 

“Laugh, kookaburra, laugh,” they sing together, not caring which of the other girls hear them. “Kookaburra, how gay your life must be.”

Then the songs flow as freely from Jennifer’s fingers as water should flow from the Citadel Mouth. There are songs of stars and of sheep and of spiders. They are joyful and stupid and not heartbreaking unless she thinks about them too deeply. But she does, she can’t help it. 

“When you wish upon a star…” Jennifer and Promise sing together, “makes no difference who you are. When you wish upon a star, your dreams come true.”


	10. Hey Ya

Dog watches the man with the particular curiosity of a creature that has just realised it isn’t in immediate danger of being eaten. The man is a peculiar human who studies Dog in the exact same way. Then he sighs as if he knows he is making a mistake and pats the seat beside him. Likewise, Dog knows neither why he obeys, nor why his belly jumps and his tail wags at the idea. He does however remember that the word for such an invitation into a human’s moving den is _car-ride_ , and even though he’s not sure how, he knows without a doubt that a _car-ride_ is a good thing. 

The man leans across the seat so Dog gets a good smell of him. Dog’s first whiff was of the man’s hand, which smelled a little too much of oil but also of dust and of blood and other human body smells… an apex predator, one who eats well. Even dog knows to chose his pack carefully in these times. Now he has the man’s clothing against his nose and all the smells that have accumulated over days and days of wear, and the scent makes Dog feel strangely at ease.

The man shuts the door, brings the car roaring to life, and they are off. Dog first curls up in his seat then stands so he can look out the window. The world zips past with all its dunes and scratchy bushes. For a moment he sees a bird, but the car is faster, and soon they have left the bird behind. The car vibrates and bounces in the uneven road, and excitement courses through Dog’s body as he presses his face into the wind so the air pushes back his lips. He lets out a single, peaceful bark. 

The man turns his head, but instead of shushing Dog, he mumbles his encouragement, “Shake it, shake it…” He taps his fingers against the steering wheel as his voice grows louder, and clearer. “Shake it like a Polaroid picture….”

Dog tilts his head and lets his tongue lull out of his mouth. He thinks he might know some of these words. He lifts a paw and pans expectantly.

The man gives Dog’s paw a quick pump before asking, “What’s cooler than being cool?” then answering himself, “Ice cold!” 

Dog turns to face the window again, his tail beating wildly against the car’s interior. The man is still saying nonsense words like “Hey” and “Ya,” and “alright” over and over again, but as Dog watches the world go by, he is glad to have a human who knows at least one trick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: [Hey Ya](https://open.spotify.com/track/3AszgPDZd9q0DpDFt4HFBy?si=3u_WDbgAS-G48ou0Ke2rSA)


	11. Born to Run

The chains and tools dangling from Furiosa’s too large pants announce her arrival behind The Ace. 

He finishes the line of the old song he’s half singing, half mumbling to himself, “It’s a death trap, it’s a suicide rap. We gotta get out while we’re young,” before asking, “Whatcha want, Pup?” He doesn’t look up from the bolt he’s loosening.

She’s hardly a Pup anymore, even if age on a full-life female is hard to read. Calling her ‘Boy’ feels wrong though. She’s young and old and soft and chrome and smart and dumb all at once. Her eyes are the sharpest eyes he’s ever seen, even more striking beneath her newly earned grease. Maybe that’s why she’s such a good shot; she just sees better than other people. Her gears are always turning. 

“Just watching,” Furiosa says and slips her hands into her pockets. 

“Grab a wrench and earn your keep,” he scoffs and then goes back to singing, “Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run…”

“What’s a tramp?” Furiosa asks, wrench in hand. 

“Take the front left tyre off.” He gives her a cup for the bolts. “Tramp is just an old word for a Wretch.”

She says nothing, just sets to work, and Ace works silently as well until she says, “Go on. Keep singing,” as if she were the one in charge. “I’ve always liked old songs.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: [Born to Run](https://open.spotify.com/track/6hTcuIQa0sxrrByu9wTD7s?si=Kmy1NzNuSvCHHw5Q4lVFHg)


	12. Part of That World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it camp? Is it sentimental slop? Is it poignantly realistic? Who the fuck knows. Part 2 of the Miss Giddy and the Piano section.

Girls come, girls go, and Jennifer feels herself turning more and more into this Miss Giddy person He wants her to be, this woman who is kind, nurturing, obedient. She is old and tired, and being angry just seems to make her more so, but Jennifer also feels herself becoming more and more the librarian she always has been. There’s no reason for her knowledge to go unused; she may very well be the last of her kind in the whole world. 

Each new girl has fewer memories of the Before and then fewer memories of the Wasteland until she has under her charge girls who have known only the life of being the softest creature within stone walls. They are not the first to live thusly. They are not the first to want more. So Jennifer Gideon turns to the stories of her youth, stories of princesses who find courage in their hearts and strength in their kindness.

She sits at the piano in the darkness, the only light the stars shining through the ancient glass overhead. The light falls on books left open, on trinkets from the Old World, beads, baubles, a hand mirror somehow still intact. Her finger hover over the piano keys as she thinks off her girls and what it must be like to have never know life outside this place, let alone outside this time with only such artifacts as evidence that life was ever any different.

She starts a song from her childhood. “Look at this stuff. Isn’t it neat?” 

She stops before her voice can catch. She knows the words as clearly as she did when she was seven years old instead of what has got to be about seventy by now. The notes, however have a few more layers of dust on them. She pecks out the next few lines one note at a time. Some hide deeper than others.

It becomes a project of sorts. When the girls are buried in books, Jennifer Gideon works out the notes to the old song. She draws a stave in chalk and marks her progress. Then she sings through it as she plays so it sticks in her memory and erases it to make room for the next day’s lesson. One day she will write it into her skin.

One night the child He calls Cheedo sits on the floor and watches Jennifer’s feet on the pedals as she plays. Their pads have long worn away, but Jennifer still uses them as if they worked. 

“Up where they walk, up where they run…”

“What song is that Miss Giddy? What’s it about?” Cheedo asks when Miss Giddy stops to add a note to her stave.

“It’s about a mermaid who wants to be human,” Jennifer explains. “A mermaid, is a girl with a tail instead of legs. She lives in the water but wants to live on land.”

“Oh…” Cheedo’s eyes get wide, probably struggling to imaginine just how much water would be required for someone to live inside it.”

“Mermaids are imaginary, like dragons.”

Cheedo shakes her head. “Toast says she saw one once.”

Jennifer shrugs and keeps working on the song. “Wandering free, wish I could be…”

“Tell us the story, Miss Giddy, please.”

And this is how Cheedo comes to believe there is a girl trapped inside the aquifer beneath the Citadel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: [Part of That World](https://open.spotify.com/track/7tUSJY4nsDBJTjd1UXKRsT?si=TiUyGN4oS06GLdYJm_9oLQ)


	13. Burning Love

“What is it?” Nux cautiously lifts the lid of one of the small trunks. He gets a peek of some kind of tiny arm cradled beside a smooth, round surface.

Slit snaps the box closed. “I found it; I get to open it.”

“If by find you mean stalled to pick it up, making me have to save your ass….”

“I had to pick it up – else you would have tripped over it.”

They are safely above ground, waiting for the word to move out. The Imperator is making rounds, surveying everyone’s loot. The best finds will be identified and presented directly to the Immortan himself. 

“We both found it,” declares Nux, “Whatever it is.” 

Nux opens the other trunk they’d picked up from the same room. It’s about the same size as the first, but it’s oriented the opposite way. Inside are sleeves of once-stiff paper each with a round, rigid object inside. On the sleeves are a variety of pictures and words, some he recognises, some he doesn’t, and some he thinks he does, but the context is all wrong. 

“Eyes up!” Slit smacks him in the head so he will jerk up in time to solute the approaching Imperator. 

The sleeve in Nux’s hand falls to the ground. A man stares up at him, a man dressed in pure white and dazzling chrome despite its age. His hair is a shock of black, and he wears a guitar slung over his shoulder. Nux doesn’t recognise the world in bold, white letters, but he sounds it out.

“Good job, Boys.” Imperator Beemer says as bends to retrieve the sleeve, “You found the King?”

“The King?” Slit demands. “What’s a king?”

“Chromest bloke ever to shine,” The Imperator says. He peers at the round object inside the sleeve. “I trust you got the player to?”

“We got this thing,” Nux offers.

“That, that’s the player.” Imperator Beemer checks the first box as well. He holds back a smile. “We’ll give her spin once we get home. You Boys are in for a treat.”

### 

Nux spends the whole ride home wondering what the Imperator meant. He keeps stealing glances in spare moments at the two trunks he’s tucked behind Slit’s seat. Sure, Slit claims they are in the way, but Nux knows they are important even if he doesn’t know why. He just knows the Imperator said so, and there is nothing Nux loves so much as winning praise. 

Every moment of waiting after they arrive back at the Citadel is torture, but there is work to be done, inventories to be taken, dents to be buffed, and holes to be patched. Everyone gradually releases the tension leftover from the run and eases into the evening rhythms of the Citadel. Slop is served in the mess hall, and Nux goes to his usual table. 

“You ain’t nothing but a hound doggy, crying all the time…” sings a strange voice.

Nux looks up from his gruel. Slit is quiet, as are the others around him. He knows all their voices better than he does his own, and the voice singing belongs to none of them. Slit and Nux both see Imperator Beemer approaching at the same time with a Pup pushing a cart behind him with the strange box atop. It’s open now with the weird arm thing sticking out across one of the weird, black round thingies. 

“The King,” whispers Nux.

“You ain’t nothing but a hound doggy, crying all the time…”

Slit nods sharply, “And he’s singing about you. You’re a rusty hound doggy, a whiny-ass smeg.”

Nux ignores him in favour of the _Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat_ of a snare drum that seems to be coming from the box as well. He wonders how so many sounds fit in the box when the Doof Corps takes up a whole wagon. 

“Chrome, right Boys?” asks Imperator Beemer. “I saw him once, Before, when I was barely a Pup. He one of the Immorta, lives up in The Cloud now, the Cloud around Walhalla.” As soon as the first song ends, he’s found another. “Ah, 8, this one’s one of my favourites.”

“Lord almighty, I feel my temperature rising,” that voice croons, and the Imperator joins in.  
It’s a bright song, light, joyful, not much like what the Doof Corps usually plays. Nux’s foot taps as the song rolls along, building in intensity. A smile grows across his face.

“Your kisses lift me higher, like the sweet song of a choir. And you light my morning sky with burning love.”

“Chrome, eh Slit?” He asks without caring about the answer.

The other Boys seem to enjoy the music as well. The Coma is clamouring onto a table, shaking his hips and swinging his arms as he goes. 

“I’m just a hunk-a-hunk-a burning love…”

Then Imperator Beemer shouts, “Hey, Doof, you got any Elvis in that jukebox brain o’ yours?” 

And Coma bangs an entirely different rhythm on his thighs and on the top of the table. Then Beemer closes his eyes as he lifts his arms and loses himself in the music: “A little less conversation, a little more action…”

Many days later, Nux will lie on his back, staring up at the sky as the last stars fade into morning. His heart will race, not from night sweats but from the flame-coloured hair pooling on his chest. He’ll try not to wake her as he stirs, but his lips will move with faint, breathy whispers: “I’m just a hunk-a-hunk-a burning love. Just a hunk-a-hunk-a burning love.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs: The Wastelander who finds three connections between these songs and our favorite movie shall ride eternal, shiny and chrome.  
> 1  
> 2  
> 3


	14. Beat It

The past few days have been hot and quiet, the worst combination. Now a few cords from the Doof Corps have the Boys itching for a fight. _Dun-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuuh nuh-nuh-nuh_. 

The Ace hums along as he looks over his crew; an eager, reckless lot they are. He sneaks peaks at the others looking for hints as to whom they will send. Strong against sharp, loose against rigid, cunning against honourable, energetic against experienced… he turns over the possibilities in his mind. 

“Furiosa,” he finally calls, and she steps forward, jaw set, mouth tight, shoulders slightly askew from the weight of her new appendage. It gleams chrome. “Let’s see how your new arm suits you.” 

“I’ll take the runt myself,” says the Prime Imperator himself. His presence down here is remarkable, let alone his partaking in the barracks antics, but rumours says he’s on the lookout for a new Imperator. 

Furiosa gives a curt nod. She may be female, but she is hardly a runt. In the time the Ace has known her he’s seen ropey muscles form on her once gangly frame. Prime still has at least half a hand in height on her and quite a bit of weight, but she's got cunning and a sharp eye for just the right target. 

She adjusts her metal arm and then coaxes it overhead in the V8 solute. “Witness me,” she snarls to the crowd of Boys gathered around her and then, “moritori te salutamus,” to the altar. Prime Imperator does the same even though none of them are likely to die, at least not this moment. If they were both half-life’s, maybe, but full-life’s are too valuable to be wasted. 

The two fighters clench chunks of worn tyre between their teeth so their lips part to shoe fearsome black. The Doof Warrior plays as they circle each other, _Dun-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuuh nuh-nuh-nuh_. 

The Ace mumbles along with the music, “There’s fire in their eyes. Their words are pretty clear…”

Furiosa bides her time, lets Prime be the aggressor. He lunges at her once and then again. She's fought Ace enough to know that the bigger they are the faster they tire. Where most Boys would spit and snarl and posture, she baits.

But her patience has a limit. She boxes Prime on the ear when he gets too close. This makes him angry; he roars as he slams his shoulder into her, knocking her backwards. She gives beneath him, drawing her knee up into his gut as she rocks back onto the sand. He dives over her and lands in a summersault, settin the Boys cheering for them both.

“Beat it, beat it,” The Ace is almost openly singing now as he beats his fist against the outside of his thigh. 

Furiosa rises dazed and panting, but she charges, catching Prime on his way to his feet. She swings the sharp elbow of her flesh arm into the his ribs. He responds with a haymaker to her cheek. Her head snaps to the side.

“Mind your guard!” Ace shouts angrily because she knows better than to try to match someone bigger in taking damage. 

Furiosa steps across herself, letting the force of the hit carry her until she can redirect it. Prime swings again, another wild haymaker. It’s a bogan punch, not something fitting his position and skill. Furiosa sees it coming as she is intended to and whips her short arm. Wham!. Metal crunches as her prosthetic makes contact. 

“Beat it! Beat it!” The Ace belts over the roaring crowd. 

Prime winces, but there’s a gleam of approval in his eyes. “First blood,” he says, acknowledging Furiosa’s victory. They both pant as they solute.

She's winded but beaming when she rejoins Ace on the edge of the sparring pit. She tugs the bit of rubber from her teeth and spits before she accepts water from him. She doesn't ask how she did; she can read it on his face. What she doesn't see are the glances Ace and Prime are exchanging or Prime's please but pensive expression as he rubs his ribs.

"Lucky you're young," says Ace once she's caught her breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: 1
> 
> And a cover that sounds a bit more on-theme: [2](https://open.spotify.com/track/2ds9vlk6o6BRCc2FAkmOvX?si=HRstwRjASFS4rFy9PPegBg)


	15. Let It Go

Tonight the girls are asleep, but Jennifer Gideon is far from alone. If she were a different sort of person, she might worry that the Vault being given a bodyguard means she is terrible at her job. Jennifer, however, already knows this. The presence and identity of this particular body guard just confirms it. 

“Does He know?” Jennifer asks as she lights an oil lamp.

“No, Miss Giddy.” The girl He once named Durable stands at rigid attention. “If He does, he has said nothing. The girl He once knew is dead anyway.”

Jennifer nods and starts drawing her nightly stave. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell the girls.” Then she turns her attention to her work only to feel the Imperator’s gaze still on the back of her neck. “You are allowed to sleep sometime, aren’t you?”

The Imperator is not amused.

Jennifer shrugs and resumes her project. It's another song now about a princess; she’s been working her way through them, chronologically, or at least as close to chronologically as her memory allows. She was older when this one was popular, but at the time it was ubiquitous so it stuck in her memory just as well as the others. 

“The wind is howling like this swirling storm inside,” Jennifer sings as she plays, and the girl whose real name has always been Furiosa slinks away into the shadows. “Can’t keep it in, heaven knows I’ve tried.”

The next night is much the same except the Imperator claims a chair for herself. Jennifer offer her a book and a lamp to pass the time, but Furiosa declines. Next Jennifer tries chalk and a board because as a girl she always liked to doodle during lessons. Now the Imperator would rather drum her metal fingers impatiently against her thighs.

Jennifer eventually gives up and focuses on pecking out the next line of her song on the piano keys. “Don’t let them in. Don’t let them see.”

By the third day, the grease around Furiosa’s eyes can’t hide the bags beneath them. One of the girls evens catches her nodding off during lessons. Her head snaps up fast enough to give a person whiplash. Jennifer says nothing. 

That night Jennifer clears out space in the library that once was a bedroom. She makes a show of her efforts but doesn’t speak a word of them. Then she bangs away at her piano obnoxiously: “Let it go, let it go,” until Furiosa retreats to her bedroom on her own. 

Just when the Vault has finally fallen into its new rhythm, Furiosa is sent on a mission for the Citadel. She comes back with a swollen lip and fresh stitches in her am. She throws up her dinner and crawls into bed. Jennifer doesn’t play that night. 

The next night Furiosa drags her chair next to the piano. She sits and cleans blood from a knife while she waits in silence. When it’s polished to a shine, she sets a square of leather on her thigh and briskly draws the blade across. 

“Go ahead,” the Imperator finally says. “Play.” There’s a twitchiness to the corners of her mouth and to her fingers, even the metal one. She draws an angry slash across the thick leather. She must notice how Jennifer hesitates, how her eyes dart. “Or don’t. Doesn’t matter.”

“You know you aren’t the best company…” Jennifer says as she slips herself between the piano and the trunk she uses for a bench.

Furiosa scoffs. “Yeah.” She presses the blunt side of her blade against the exposed skin just above her prosthesis. “That’s why I need yours.”

“So what do you do when you’re out there with the Boys?” Jennifer asks as draws her stave. Furiosa is silent while Jennifer draws in the notes she remembers from other nights. “You aren’t going to tell me, are you?”

“Never.”

So Jennifer Gideon who never really will be Miss Giddy plays and sings through her progress while the girls who never really was Durable stares into the darkness. “Let it go, let it go. I am one with the wind and sky. Let it go, let it go. You’ll never see me cry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The is the last part of the Miss Giddy Sings Disney section because sorry not sorry, Disney songs survive the apocalypse.
> 
> Song: [Let It Go ](https://open.spotify.com/track/0qcr5FMsEO85NAQjrlDRKo?si=Pyh_KOVaSS66IXwzooJ_Yw)


	16. Somewhere Over the Rainbow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I am a terrible person:

Most days the Vault is filled with nothing but free time. Joe comes at night with only his guards and sometimes in the morning with Organic for examinations. The rest of the time the girls are left under Miss Giddy’s care and the protection of his newest gift. 

However, Joe won’t have them thinking that their existence is for anything other than his pleasure, and when that pleasure isn’t physical, he orders of them something more complicated. He’s been requiring performances, songs and dances of his waves for thousands of days, but even he must know these wives are different. This group is special. 

When Joe orders a play, Miss Giddy knows just the one, a fantastical adventure in Australia, or at least the place Americans once imagined it to be. Miss Giddy has always delighted in preparing secretly subversive material for just these occasions, and this play will be no different. 

So Angharad is given the part of a girl who must follow a yellow road home through a strange land in strange company. Toast is a woman of straw and after some cajoling, Imperator Furiosa agrees to play the one made of metal because she is obviously the best suited. Cheedo is a big cat, and Dag a little dog. Capable is a good witch, and Joe even has the War Boys bring her a dress like a pink cloud from the underground mall. Miss Giddy is the bad witch because she refuses to share it with anyone else. Joe himself even gets a part, the title character because their Warlord deserves only the best.

There are songs of course, mostly light and fun, but one in particular sends Furiosa fumbling for an excuse to hide in her room. It is Angharad’s solo, and she finds every opportunity to practice it: “One day I’ll wish upon a star and wake up where the clouds are far behind me,” she sings while she brushes her hair.

Most of the lyrics are nonsense, whimsical words strewn together like bits of glass strung into a necklace. Capable is content to let them just be pretty, but Toast needs them to have meanings. Some are easy enough: bluebirds, chimneys… others like lemondrops Miss Giddy just shrugs away. A rainbow, however, is something Miss Giddy is certain the girls have seen; a rainbow, Miss Giddy says is what the coloured light is called that appears when sunlight shines against the water as it hits the worn stones on the ground. 

Angharad is less concerned with the song’s literal meaning than with its figurative truths. She decides there is a place on the other side of this giant bridge of coloured light if for no other reason than that anywhere would be better than here. 

“Where troubles melt like lemon drops…” Angharad whispers are she stacks books. “Away above the chimney tops….” 

By the time someone finds the sturdy piece of paper with picture of the red stone buttes draped in greenery, Angharad has become quite skilled and confident with the song. She promises in a strong clear voice, “That’s where you’ll find me.”

Furiosa tightens her mouth and shakes her head. Then she relocates herself to the the spare bedroom she’s inherited from wives long gone. 

The thin curtain can’t be a match for Angharad’s voice. “If birds fly over the rainbow, why oh why can’t I?” Angharad can be cruel like that to get what she wants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: [Somewhere Over the Rainbow](https://open.spotify.com/track/1Lom3Qqs0HUPxqnmRVumKQ?si=ExABxJnNRP-oKj6Eg8V2dQ)


	17. Cups

Furiosa has no qualms about using her authority to borrow a set of hair clippers from the garage. The Boys often wait in line, bantering amongst themselves. An Imperator is too busy for that, or so the logic goes, and it’s sound logic. Furiosa trims her hair in stolen moments, sometimes late at night or early in the morning, or other times when she’s so frustrated she needs to destroy something small and worthless. 

_Clack,_ her bedroom door closes behind her, and _click-clk-clk-clk-clk_ , she turns the lock to secure it. Then she gives it a couple of quick nudges with her boot, _shm, shm_ , just to make sure. 

She feels herself both relax and tense at once before her plans scrawled on her walls in white chalk. They are just messy and vague enough to obscure their true meaning. She can’t resist making one more edition, perhaps a little too clearly: “HARD LEFT,” she writes with a _scritch-tch-tch-tch-tch._ A single “!” Just feels right, _shih, tchi._

Then she starts ups the clippers, _bzz-z-z-z-z_ and touches them to her scalp, _zt-zt_.

She hums to herself as the vibrations move through her skull, and then when she can’t hold back anymore, she sing softly, “When I’m gone, when I’m gone, you’re gonna miss me when I’m gone…”

Furiosa runs her stump over the side of her head, enjoying the fresh prickles of shorn hair. _Bzz-z-z-z-z_ , she runs the clippers over a missed spot, _zt-zt_.

“You’re gonna miss me by my hair; you’re gonna miss me everywhere. Yeah, you’re gonna miss me when I’m gone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: [Cups](https://open.spotify.com/track/4iHcYozmOHTNe1Ef2fJfCH?si=z4Aal4RPTY6ry7VD02svQw)


	18. 500 Miles

A War Boy doesn’t collect as many days as The Ace has without getting left behind a few times. He’s been thrown off bikes and cars and rigs, some that now exist only in his memory and some that don’t even exist there. He’s been far less lucky than this, landed at far worse angles on far harder and sharper surfaces. As for today, his nose is broke, and his head and shoulder hurt something fierce, but he only throws up once; his legs still work, and he’s not bleeding much. Oh what a lovely day.

Soft Boys will sometimes give up when their bodies hit the ground. They open their eyes once and then close them again, waiting. Others drag themselves up and start walking while the sun beats down on them. They trudge and stumble and fall; they might get up once, maybe twice, maybe not at all before the desert takes them. 

Ace knows the only reason he has made it back to the Citadel as many times as he has is because he has a walking song. It’s an old tune, mostly shouting, which is a language he understands well. 

“I will walk five-hundred miles.” He promises himself as he scans the newly fallen sand for more survivors. “I will walk five-hundred more.”

A shape stirs in the dust. Then the lump groans, and the particles part to reveal Scorch, bruised and bloodied and quite a bit worse for wear but very much alive. His eyes are wide and unfocused, maybe from confusion, maybe from concussion, probably both. Ace gives him a look forbidding him to ask questions without answers. 

“Best get movin’ Pup,” he says to Scorch while easing the Boy’s arm onto his good shoulder. 

The Ace would walk back on his own, but he much prefers this world with Scorch in it and doubts the Boy would make it back alone. There is no Walhalla for those the sand takes, only dust. 

The air is still and quiet; Ace’s face throbs from the Imperator’s punch. He knows a surefire way to lose his traction when he meets one. 

There’s one way to get his traction back: “When I wake up, well I know I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be the man whose wakin’ up with you.”

“You gone mad there Ace?” Scorch mumbles.

“It’s a walking song, hymn to V8. Ya sing the whole thing, never stop walkin’. Then you do it again ya see, as many times as it takes.”

“Like a driving song?”

“Mm-hm, except no Doof Corps, only you and me. We will walk 500 miles, and we will walk 500 more.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As requested by [Kirkypet](https://tmblr.co/mUTJHc25ImjwGC5GuBVfGTw) and [Once-a-polecat](https://tmblr.co/mVIPVvpwWEUBNE5qAUKIJcg)
> 
> Song: [500 Miles](https://open.spotify.com/track/66S14BkJDxgkYxLl5DCqOz?si=S8JrccOISi6ochaZ_itj8g)


	19. Bittersweet Symphony

Valkyrie squints as she attempts to thread her needle by lantern light. A poorly aimed jab parts the fibres. She wets the fine cord between her lips and tries again.

“It’s a bittersweet symphony this life…” the other Vuvalini sing to each other around the low fire. “Try to make ends meet, try to find somebody then we die…” The joy in their voices is a poor match for the lyrics, but that sort of thing never has bothered them much. And tonight there are guests… guests and old friends. 

Furiosa approaches slowly. Her shoulders are bare and sunken as if the world is just too heavy. Maadi intercepts her with a blanket, bundles her as if she were a child. 

“I’m sorry we don’t have more to give you, but we’re so glad to have you.” Maadi tucks the corner of the blanket beneath itself.

“Don’t be.”

Keeper keeps the song going before the others can wonder what exactly Furiosa meant by that. “I’m here in my mode, yes I’m here in my mode.”

“Sit with us Furi,” coaxes the smallest girl, but Furiosa stays standing with the weariness of a person who has forgotten how to sit down. 

“You always had the best eyes.” Valkyrie holds up the glove she is mending. “Do you think you could help me with this?” She immediately regrets the request; can Furiosa still thread a needle?

“I’m a million different people from one day to the next,” the song insists.

Furiosa straightens herself and walks around the fire. She lowers herself with characteristic grace and confidence. “What can I do?” Some things never change.

Valkyrie holds her needle up so it catches the light. “If I hold this steady, can you get a thread through?”

“Can’t that wait until morning?” Keeper chides them.

Furiosa crouches and snakes her whole arm from the blanket folds. Valkyrie passes her the thread, and her face tightens in concentration. Valkyrie holds her breath so the needle doesn’t shake. 

Everyone is quiet except for the singing, “I’ll take you down the only road I’ve ever been down…”

“Speaking of the morning…” Furiosa doesn’t lift her eyes from the task at hand. “I need to pay the men.”

“Pay?” asks Maadi. “You mean they aren’t with you?”. Then she shrugs, "What do they want?"

The others lean closer, the song tapering off into silence. They look around, first to the other women, than to the bald and skinny boy with the flame haired girl in his lap. He fidgets under the attention. Then they look around for the other man who seems to have wandered off. 

“I think…” the boy says cautiously. “A place with you… that would be chrome.”

“Remember Furi, it wasn’t always just us girls,” says Keeper before she starts up the song again, “It’s a bittersweet symphony this life…”

Furiosa chews her lip as the thread slides through the needle eye, not a single fibre split from the others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: [Bittersweet Symphony](https://open.spotify.com/track/57iDDD9N9tTWe75x6qhStw?si=Ti4hyJfYRLqQX4Pu30xSJg)


	20. Roadrunner

Furiosa feels her flesh hand tighten its grip on the stolen steering wheel. If she looks down she will see the her skin stretching over the white bones of her knuckles. She doesn’t look down. 

The girls and the War Boy seem just as tense, but the Vuvalini are determined to stay in good spirits, especially the oldest, the Keeper of the Seeds as they’ve taken to calling her, or just Keeper. Furiosa remembers when she was just called Delores Stroke. 

“I don’t give a damn ‘bout my reputation,” Keeper sings as she loads her rifle. “You’re living in the past; it’s a new generation…”

Furiosa realises that she’s been holding her breath and lets out a long stream of air through her lips pursed as narrow as the canyon. She needs her wits about her, can’t afford to let her mind get hazy not now as they are nearing Joe’s encampment. 

The lookouts have probably already seen the War Rig’s approach. There isn’t much activity yet, but there will be. She flexes her flesh hand hard enough that her knuckles pop. 

Keeper gives The Dag a nudge. “A girl can do what she wants ta do, and that’s what I’m gonna do.”

The Warlord encampment springs to life in the cloud of dust behind the War Rig. Furiosa grits her teeth and accelerates. Stealth is not a realistic option. 

Keeper switches songs, “Roadrunner, Roadrunner, going faster miles an hour… I say Roadrunner once, Roadrunner twice. We’re like a Road Runner.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs: [Bad Reputation](https://open.spotify.com/track/7DpUzFsSG1AFcrOM8n2PdP?si=vmNuGrQmSBqNcNMvRb7TGg)
> 
> [Roadrunner](https://open.spotify.com/track/14422jQTovCSyqhd1Q7StC?si=hxvaU5ZSTJiqYCMzthBoJg)


	21. Hey Jude

The night is dark and quiet, just the hum of the road and the restless breathing of its travelers. The girls are asleep in a tangle of limbs and hair. The older women are taking shifts driving, whispering nonsense to keep each other awake. They shift between giddiness and solemnity. Then one sings something silly before the other can slip too deep into sorrow. They cycle through those stages as wheels turn beneath them and carry them towards the still dark horizon.

The women are both singing now, a different song but still familiar, “Hey Jude, don’t make it bad…” Giggles swallow the next few words.

Max tries not to let on that he’s listening, but he doubts the women mind much. He's dazed and muzzy, too tired to sleep, or move or speak or do much of anything besides ride along, his mind empty, his eyes glazed. He just keeps doing what he's been doing for more days than he's bothered to track: slipping through cracks between moments, disappearing into the shadows…. 

“The minute you let her under your skin, then you begin to make it better…” the women’s singing goes on.

Furiosa’s breathing hitches, and Max’s heart tries to tear open his chest. Her eyes flutter asymmetrically beneath her swollen brow and then open halfway. She’s still not quite there, still just a whisper of herself. Max’s hands feel entirely too large as he tries to find a safe place for them so he can ease her higher onto his chest. She lets out a faint, garbled whine when he moves her. He lets the less wounded side of her face rest against his.

“Anytime you feel the pain, Hey Jude, refrain. Don’t carry the world upon your shoulders.”

Furiosa’s breathing smooths out, and Max relaxes as well, lets her sink into him. He opens the sides of his jacket so there’s only the thin fabric of his shirt between Furiosa’s chest and his. Her body has enough work ahead without having to keep itself warm. His fingers find her pulse, and he holds his own breath as he counts the beats. 

“Don’t you know that he’s a fool who plays it cool and makes his world a little colder.”

Max runs his thumb over the pale, fine hairs above her temple and whispers along with the women’s singing, “Na, na, na, na - na - na - na.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: [Hey Jude ](https://open.spotify.com/track/0aym2LBJBk9DAYuHHutrIl?si=Fb4cIZezRh2ziY4kpPF0PQ)


	22. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Toast is tired long before sunset.  She has to practically drag herself back to the Vault on bruised and aching legs.  She glares at the others who have the good fortune to be sitting down.  They are casually singing some old world song as they collectively sort through a pile of ammunition.  

“I wanna be the one to walk in the sun….”

Dag pats an open cushion, lumpy, patched, and threadbare, without losing a beat.    Toast drops herself into it, the fluff spreading and lifting in a feeble attempt to support her.  It succeeds for a fraction of a second and then slumps back to the floor.  Toast feels the same way except with the added frustration that she must be losing her mind if she’s empathizing with a pillow.  

“That’s all they want…. Some fun…..”

There’s one type of bullet no one has claimed, thick and short.  Cheedo rolls a few over to Toast.  “Can you take the shells?”  She emphasizes the last word with the pure pride of freshly gained knowledge.  Toast nods, meeting her eyes.

“I thought shells came from the sea…” Dag muses while the others hum the next few bars of music.  

“Or rivers, or trees, or people,” Capable says as she and the two older Vuvalini exchange glances. 

“When the working day is done, girls, they wanna have fun…”

Toast just sighs as she reaches for the ever shrinking pile and plucks a few of her assigned shells from the others.  She lets them click together and then sets them down and rolls them towards her.  They sing as they glide over the stone floor until they bounce against her shins.

“Girls just wanna have fun.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song link: [Girls Just Wanna Have Fun](https://open.spotify.com/track/11qJo8BHxYDUg6NSVZp95i?si=qw7tC1V3SJagD-uMV0mvhg)


	23. Khe Sanh

A flat expanse of land extends all the way to the horizon. Max scans it for no particular type of threat. There’s something just right about the meeting of orange and blue. He shifts to a higher gear, and his hard won V8 purrs in gratitude for the opportunity to show what she can do. Max lets off the clutch as he presses harder on the gas; she roars with excitement. 

He’s in Citadel territory he thinks; that doesn’t make this stretch of road particularly safe though, just safer than most. He’s more likely to hit a boulder than a Buzzard, which has to count for something these days. 

Max tips back his chin and closes his eyes as the air moves over him. The ground sends vibrations up through his bones. He wonders if this is what it’s like to be a dog: pure rush, pure sensation, pure road. 

His mind turns to the plastic cartridges he’d found left behind in a ramshackle house. He’s always been lucky, and that was a lucky day, even more so because he knew what the cartridges were and the equipment he need to find to play them. He kept them with the other parts as he scavenged, and now he has the car and the the cartridges and the alien looking box of gears to play them, and for the life of him he can’t imagine anything better. 

He pulls out one without looking at it too closely and pops it into the player. It takes a bit of finagling, enough that he feels a certain sense of self-satisfaction when the old gears turn, and the small speaker coughs itself to life.

“Everybody’s doing a brand new dance now. C’mon baby, do the locomo-“

Max practically slams down the eject button. 

The next cartridge starts mid-song: “Carry on my wayward son; they’ll be peace when you-“

That cartridge flies farther than the last one; it bounces off the passenger seat. The third cartridge yields only the soft hiss of distant static and then a click as the gears stop turning. Pulling cartridges at randomly clearly isn’t working out so well. The ground has grown rockier, and even though Max still tears his eyes away from the road, he wishes for half a moment that he had a companion whose taste he trusted. Oh, to not have to chose between risking his newly acquired windscreen and settling for intolerable music. 

He decides he’s gone soft, spoiled even. The hum of the road should still be enough. He just drives, eyes open, mind empty, hands and feet ready to react, no voices in his head, no whispers behind him hoping he won’t hear, no leather and metal shifting beside him, not even ringing in his ears or quiet breathing.

He decides to try one more cartridge, just one more. When he stops he’ll dig through them properly. When he’s tucked up safe somewhere he’ll play them each all the way through, even the obnoxious ones. Maybe some of the Vuvalini will recognise them and sing along.

For now, the one he chooses is lucky. It starts up slowly enough with, “I left my heart to the sappers round Khe Sanh,” And eventually is bouncing along as lightly and freely as anyone could ever sing, “So I worked across the country end to end. Tried to find a place to settle down, where my mixed up life could mend.” And Max is bouncing along with it, shaving off the clicks between his car and the Citadel as he hums along, “The last plane out of Syndey’s almost gone.” It is gone, as is Sydney itself. Now it’s just a line in a song Max uses to fill the silence and the road between himself and the place where all roads seem to lead these days. 

When the cartridge runs out, he rewinds it and plays it again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As requested by [ecouter-bien](http://ecouter-bien.tumblr.com) and [ thebyrchentwigges ](https://thebyrchentwigges.tumblr.com)
> 
> Song: [ Khe Sanh](https://open.spotify.com/track/5lX5ggveOFVDNMXVqbnL4r?si=no77m-CcTxWWVdgf0TVN2w)


	24. Mad World

Things have a way of ending up in Max’s pockets. His fingers move over whatever surfaces they find interesting, roll roundish objects between their pads, and follow bumps and crevices. Most of the time he doesn’t even realise it’s happening; his mind is somewhere else, chairing who-knows-what to who-knows-where while things sneak into his pockets. Some objects turn out to be useful later. Others just take up space until he can pass them along to someone else. Still others cling to him and no matter how he tries he cannot shake them.

The music box is one such object. He doesn’t know what it is as first, just a gear, cylinder, and crank. He likes the cylinder’s bumpy surface, likes the way the little nuns poke his fingers. He fiddles with it during quiet moments and soon learns that turning the crank makes them not so quiet. He watches the tiny slivers of metal move over the cylinder bumps like bristles of a broom.   
_Tun-tun, tun-tun, tn-tn, tun-tn-tun…_

Max hasn’t seen a broom in thousands of days. He figures the ones that could be burnt have been, that the plastic ones have crumbled, and that the metal ones have been repurposed.

### 

He only sees a broom again after a mild dust storm moves over the Citadel. He’s lucky he supposes that he can see patches of blue and green through the grated ceiling above his cage. At least he usually can -today the sky is almost orange. Then dust pours in to coat the floor and turn the runoff water to muck. 

Max is still woozy from his last draining. He can’t do much more than tuck his chin and pull the edge of his filthy shirt up to his mouth. He closes his eyes and rubs the pad of his forefinger against what’s left of his thumb nail. 

Then he hears the familiar, metallic ting. _Tun-tun, tun-tun, tn-tn, tun-tn-tun…_ A War Boy hunches over, stolen, dark leather around his white torso. He hacks and sputters and gasps as he holds the little, metal cylinder. 

When the storm calms, the Pups emerge from the shadows with a broom about as tall as two of them stacked together. Little by little, they sweep the wasteland back outside. The Boy still turns the crank, and the _Tun-tun, tun-tun, tn-tn, tun-tn-tun…_ fills the Bloodshed as they work.

### 

Max finds the cylinder again as he sits beside Furiosa in the Rig. She’s visibly worn, but she insists on driving, says it’s was her turn. Max obliges; he knows what it’s like to need road noise to clog the mind. 

Max turns the crank, makes the little cylinder turn beneath the line of metal teeth. _Tun-tun, tun-tun, tn-tn, tun-tn-tun…_

He thinks Furiosa might be annoyed, but that also might be the way she always looks. He stops playing anyway until the girls demand to see his strange trinket. They pass it between themselves as the marvel at it. The War Boy demonstrates with great relish how to coax the tinny notes free. 

_Tun-tun, tun-tun, tn-tn, tun-tn-tun…_

Furiosa keeps her eyes ahead and says flatly, “It’s a music box, missing the box.” 

Max nods. “Open the box, music plays.”

Furiosa hums in agreement.

### 

Max assumes the music box cylinder is lost, still in the canyon with the wreckage of the War Rig. 

Furiosa’s body is still recovering, much to slowly for her liking. She has colour in her cheeks again, and her breathing is clear if still a little shallow. Max would think he should tell her he’s glad of it except she hates when people worry over her. She tries to do everything as usual though, and she succeeds for the most part, except when the exhaustion finally overwhelms her. She delays the inevitable as long as she can, but it is, after all, inevitable.

He finds her asleep at her work table. She is slumped over, her forehead pressed into the crook of her elbow. She can’t be comfortable. He thinks to shake her awake but doesn’t want to startle her. He whispers her name, but she doesn’t stir. He could carry her the few steps to her bed, but that hardly seems like a good idea. 

His gaze lands on a metal box sitting just under the window. Once rusty panels have been polished and hinged together. A simple latch holds it shut, or perhaps just holds it together. The thing is well made but delicate in the way of Before things. It’s meant to be held with care.

Max ponders how humans are a predictable lot as some primal force draws him towards it. Where there is fruit, it must be eaten. Where there is a box, it must be opened. And so he does.

_Tun-tun, tun-tun, tn-tn, tun-tn-tun…_

Furiosa lifts her head. “Hey,” she says with uncharacteristic brightness, like a child caught sneaking treat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: [Mad World](https://open.spotify.com/track/6ifvNGjfAbVxNzPmGuK3GF?si=2rMfs7_XRnyfKYxel2LjLQ)


	25. Hands

Capable leaves the door to the formerly-Vault-now-Library open behind her. It’s deserted now with all the Pups in practical skills classes for the moment. Their lessons await their return: _A is for Ace, B is for Bulletfarm, C is for Citadel, D is for Driver, E is for Engine, F is for Furiosa, G is for Gastown…._

Capable finds the guitar strewn across the piano bench. She cradles it as she examines the strings - no less intact than the last time she held the instrument. She tries a few cords and a few more. They sneak from her fingers almost without her notice. There’s a melody to them even if it is small and almost forgotten. 

“My hands, small I know…” she sings as she dusts off the old words buried in her mind. Only a few hundred days have passed since she’s last sung them, but her old life in this place feels ancient and distant even as she sits among its remnants. At the same time the air is thick with the past. She imagines Miss Giddy must have felt the same way about the Before, sometimes like it happened to someone else, sometimes like it was only a blink behind, closer than her shadow.

“But they’re not yours; they are my own.” She tries to chase the past away by playing louder, but all she manages to do is draw the it closer until her voice breaks under the weight of memory, “We will fight, not out of spite…”

Capable stands as she sets the guitar down. Still she hums the old song, the one that passed from Miss Giddy to Angharad to herself. She hums and she takes a piece of chalk and writes above the alphabet lesson on the chalkboard _A is for Angharad_. 

She tightens up a few letters before moving on to _G_ as she sings, “They’re not yours; they are my own and, we are never broken.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: [Hands](https://open.spotify.com/track/1Nchgvmv9DUrB8X1n442EH?si=Q5v75X1CR66aBsGhOIQwFA)


	26. Another One Bites the Dust

Furiosa fidgets in the shotgun seat of the Gigahorse. She tries crossing her arms first, then rests the metal one on the open window. She tugs at her scarf, which isn't quite sitting correctly, then uses it to clean the lenses of her goggles. Eventually she gives up on anything interesting happening and swings her boots onto the dash. 

“Keep your wrists straight,” she chides Toast. “Then they won’t wear out so fast.”

“Mm-hmm.” Toast makes the slightest adjustment to her grip to prove that she’s listening. 

Ace smirks beneath his grease paint as he peers through the window, and Furiosa pretends not to notice. He must be loving this. Toast is a faster learner, a far better student then she ever was. Even so, nits left unpicked will multiply.

Furiosa crosses her feet. "Relax your shoulders." 

“Doof’s asking what music you want,” Ace says, partially in explanation for his presence. 

“Doesn’t matter,” Furiosa mutters before coughing into her scarf. 

No one asks if she’s alright; they know better than that. Her lungs being a touch finicky is just about all that’s left of her revolution injuries unless she decides to shoot a long gun. Then the recoil is a bit like getting stabbed all over again. She doesn’t think she would mind too much though in a situation that truly called for it. At least then she wouldn’t be obsolete. 

“Queen,” says Toast without taking her eyes off the road. “How about some Queen.”

“Coming right up.” Ace throws Furiosa a knowing look before hauling himself back on top of the Gigahorse to pass the order on.

Familiar cords rise. _mm-mm-mm_. The whole convoy finds the rhythm, and its movements synchronise. Engines rev. Furiosa feels every drumbeat rumbling in her chest. The Boys must feel it too; they whoop along with the music in an explosive display of enthusiasm that would have meant war a mere hundred days before. 

Toast has a gleam in her eye as she accelerates expertly. The needle barely kisses the red. “Are you ready? Are you ready for this?” she sings to herself as she manoeuvres to straddle a stone. 

“This next one coming up on your right, about 1:30,” Furiosa points out a stone, “shoot it.” It’s a small target, Furiosa realises, one she might pick for her own practice. She feels a certain itch in her trigger finger. 

Toast nods as she straightens the wheel then draws a pistol from a pocket on the inside of the door. She steals a peak at the floor and locks down the accelerator. Ace opens the roof for her, and Toast climbs. She’s shaking ever so slightly as she rises. She fumbles with the safety strap. 

“Mm-mm-mm, another one bites the dust,” Toast mutters, squinting as she aims. The bullet whizzes over the top of the rock.

“Remember to account for our speed,” Furiosa shouts as Toast aims for a second try. “The closer we are, the bigger the adjustment.”

Toast misses a second time. By now she’s drawn herself an audience. She fidgets under the weight of their gazes. 

“Let that one go,” offers Ace. “It’s too close. Don’t want ricochet. There’s plenty more rocks.”

“Out of the doorway bullet rip,” Cheedo sings in encouragement as she hugs her bundle of cargo to her chest.

The mission is a success regardless of this bit of target practice. It’s just a diversion, just something to pass the time. Imperators miss shots; it’s part of the job, but Furiosa knows what it’s like to have a stubborn target in her sight. 

“Mind the road,” she yells up to Toast. “Remember why we’re here.” Furiosa scans the road for hazards. “You still have to get us home.” 

“One more shot,” Toast protests. 

She must see the same stone Furiosa does. It’s larger, a proper beginner’s target, but it’s right in the Gigahorses’s path. If they run over it, they might blow a tyre or kick it into a friendly windscreen. 

“What’s your backup plan?” Furiosa asks ready to slide herself into the driver seat. She hates driving this car, hates it in a way that turns her stomach sour, but she will if she has to. 

“I’ll get it.”

“That’s not what I asked.” 

Ace shoots Furiosa a Look forbidding her from taking the wheel. She knows Toast has to make her own mistakes and learn to live with their consequences, but this isn’t just training. This is a real mission Furiosa has sullied with her own boredom. The first shot was too difficult; Toast wasn’t ready for it, and she’s not ready for this pressure. Consequences coming too quickly will only hold her back. 

Furiosa slides herself into the driver seat. She’s about to unlock the accelerator when Toast’s bullet hits the rock, and shouts erupt from the crew. The rocks splits down the centre harmlessly. 

“Mm-mm-mm, another one bites the dust,” Toast sings smugly as she climbs back into the cab. She rocks her shoulders and swings her hips. “Budge over.”

Furiosa obeys, letting a slight smile show before she tightens her scarf. “And another one’s gone and another one’s gone…” she whispers into the worn cloth. “Hey, gonna get you too. Another one bites the dust.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: [Another One Bites the Dust](https://open.spotify.com/track/57JVGBtBLCfHw2muk5416J?si=tsO3l-mJTouE_Os3AbqoXA)


	27. Crazy Diamond

Bartertown is busy for such a hot, summer afternoon. Word has it a passing storm kept business slow for the past few days, and so merchants and shoppers are eager to cut their midday naps short and get back to business. There’s already a few people bent over with heat sickness, either that or the smells have finally gotten to them. The scent of the place is a potent reminder that everything organic rots. 

Max chokes back a gag and tugs a scarf over his mouth. He trudges on, glad that his wares are already liquid and not likely to putrefy in his pockets. The girls haven’t quite worked the kinks out of drying and canning fruit. Between himself and the Vuvalini, they have a working knowledge, but their stores are too low to risk a batch rotting in transport. Potatoes take up too much space, and the Bartertown folk aren’t too keen on cooking. They do, however, appreciate quality hooch.

“Make sure you get a good price,” Dag ordered as she supervised her latest distilling project getting loaded into the Interceptor’s boot.

“Always do.”

He does actually, at least when he manages to reach an actual deal. Sometimes his reputation precedes him, and people are more interested in a fight than the latest offerings from the Citadel. Sometimes they ask too many questions, and Max just shrugs while he watches for a shadowed accomplice to make a move for his pockets. When they actually are interested in making a purchase, he waits in impatient silence until their price moves into his range. 

The people out and about today have covered their faces with damp cloth, making them look a bit like ghosts from Before books for children. That keeps them quiet for the most part. When they do talk, their words are garbled. Between that and the sweat running into everyone’s ears, speech is hardly worth the effort. They compensate though, grunts and gestures filling the spaces words don’t quite fill. It’s a language Max knows fluently. 

The famous Bartertown saxophone is yet another complicating factor. The player stands above the crowds on a platform surrounded by the nubile and fertile-seeming, fine, sheer cloth clinging to their bodies. It’s a conspicuous display of wealth between the cloth, the water drenching it, and the at least functional reed in the player’s mouth. 

Jessie used to have a devil of a time finding functional reeds, and that was even before the Fall had claimed Melbourne. Max remembers her pacing about the bedroom with Sprog on her hip and a reed between her lips. It needed to be wet, just the right amount of damp, she had tried to explain once – too dry and it would crack. 

Most people had given up their hobbies by then, at least the ones that required specialised equipment no one made anymore. Jessie was always a bit rebellious like that. Some people got depressed as the world went to shit. The worst took out their anger on everyone around them and disguised it as joy. The best took to music and sign language like a giant middle finger raised high above the rising tide of destruction. 

The saxophonist isn’t playing any of her old favourite songs. He’s just backup for the singing wares around him. “I’ve been looking for a driver who’s qualified. If you think that you’re the one, step into my ride…” the youthful creatures croon from their various perches. 

Jessie preferred the saxophone solos from the Pink Floyd canon. She liked that the words were separate from the solos so she could still sing along for the most part. He remembers her taunting and teasing with, “Shine on you crazy diamond.” She would sing it as she nuzzled Sprog’s nose and to Max with a shrug at some of his goofier antics.

Sometimes it’s hard to believe that the boy he was then became the man he is now. Sometimes he thinks that he only dreamt of a time when his knee wasn’t bum and his elbow wasn’t gammy. Other times he still knows their sounds and their scents clear as day. 

And in times like this he wonders what kind of young man Sprog would be now? Would he be one of the War Boys trying to fight off his nagging itch for Walhalla? 

Would he be that one up on the Bartertown platform leaning to emphasise his bum as he sings, “Can you handle the curves? Can you run all the lights?”

The others drop their weight between their heals as they open their knees. “I’m zero to sixty in three point five.”

They notice Max’s approach and focus their attentions accordingly. He finds himself surrounded by damp, slinky flesh. They are close enough that he can feel the air get more humid around them, but he doesn’t dare touch.

“You,” he says to the saxophonist before pulling a flask from his bag. 

“Talk to the one you want,” hisses a girl with hennaed hair. “We set our own prices.”

“Him.” Max tips his head towards the saxophonist. “Drink for a song.” The saxophonist keeps playing but his eyes are on Max. “Vodka, from real potatoes.”

A drink for a song would have been more than a fair trade Before when Goose introduced Max to the last jazz bar in the country, probably in the world. Goose always said people should be compensated for their talents, and that everyone deserved a few minutes of oblivion – “too many brain cells, too many for our own good.” A few days later Max knew exactly what he meant. 

“What’s your pleasure?” asks the sax man as he sneaks a sniff at the Citadel vodka. 

“Pink Floyd?” The man looks old enough to remember, and Max doubts too many people are giving sax lessons these days. The man nods and sneaks in a few more notes of the current number before Max adds, “Crazy Diamond?” The man nods again and retrieves a cup from his belt. 

The saxophonist starts playing before Max has even finished pouring. The wares stop and stare, obviously confused that their number has been cut short. Max pours himself a drink, closes his eyes and rides the smooth undulations of melody. 

He waits until the chorus comes around to whisper a toast, “Shine in your crazy diamond,” to the whole damn world.   
Then he drinks and waits to think a little bit less.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs: [Shut Up and Drive ](https://open.spotify.com/track/3m7Fne4xA0bsKzEaWbNucr?si=UiEjN091Q_yFwjSLYyxoDQ)
> 
> [Crazy Diamond](https://open.spotify.com/track/2dWCp5vcNwSy25zRVFGC5t?si=ZjHlMldrThujhrFx8igaLw)


	28. Beautiful Day

Cheedo’s hand. A whispered murmur of agreement rises from the group. “Then make sure I’m doing this right.” 

“Just flip the switch,” says Furiosa.

Max nods behind her. He shuffles then switches his hands to different pockets as if he’s unsure what to do with them. He’s as close to Furiosa as she lets anyone, and he seems painfully aware. She doesn’t.

“And put the record on the player?” Cheedo asks slowly, trying to make sure she has all the steps set. 

“Nah, Coma should play,” says Dag.

Furiosa sits in a folding chair like she used to back when she was the Vault’s guard. “He would like that.”

“And they’ll hear you all the way at the Bulletfarm,” Dag shouts as she slaps Coma on the back. 

Max leans forward, his hand on Furiosa’s shoulder. “Further.”

“But what song?” asks Cheedo. “It’s gotta be a good one.” They’ve been pouring over the War Boys’ record collection and Max’s box of cartridges every night ever since they first found them. Cheedo knows the perfect recordings, but the right song for Coma to play has her stumped. 

The older Vuvalini exchange whispers and cryptic rhythms. “All You Need Is Love?” “Nah, too hokey.” “Get What You Give?” “How does that one go?” 

Ace shuffles in his seat. “I’ve got one.”

The others stare for a moment before Dag says, “Go on, out with it.”

Ace leans over Coma as he hums _Mm-Mm-Mm, Mmm-mm._. Then he drums a rhythm on Coma’s shoulder that elicits enthusiastic nods of approval. “Coma knows it.”

Dag’s eyes dart from face to face. “And again, everybody ready?”

She hardly waits for an answer before flicking the main switch. At first nothing happens, but then a single pop of static announces that they just have a near perfect signal. Dag takes a deep breath as she squeezes Cheedo’s palm with one hand and lifts the handset with the other.

“Good evening, Wasteland. You are listening to…” Dag pauses to grin and shake off some nervous energy… “Radio Free Citadel. I’m your host bringing you songs of Before and After.” 

The others give Dag nods of encouragement. Yes, she’s saying all the right things. Yes, she really does sound like radio people did.

“This one comes from our own Doof Corps here at the Citadel. This is no recording, mates.”

“It comes to you live,” one of the Vuvalini feeds her, and she repeats. 

Then Dag passes the handset to Ace who flashes a signal to Coma. The rooftop garden erupts into music. Then a screech of _Eeeeeee_ sends everyone covering their ears until Max runs the radio set up further from the corps, who play on, undeterred.

Ace takes a breathe, closes his eyes, and sings, “The heart is a bloom, shoots up from the stoney ground.”

Dag practically dives into Cheedo’s chest as she squeals with excitement. Cheedo has to squeal too though she manages to keep hers a bit more muffled. Everything is just so overwhelmingly, impossibly good. “You did great,” she assures Dag. “We all did.” 

This is the culmination of days and days of work, from sourcing the radio parts to learning to operate them, but it’s more. _Free_ isn’t just something people say in the names of radio stations, although the Vuvalini insist it is that as well, it’s a truth and a promise. 

“Do you think anyone’s listening?” Dag asks.

The Corps plays on. “You thought that you found a friend, to take you out of this place, someone you could lend a hand in return for grace.”

Cheedo nods as she pictures a family huddled around a box with a hand crank like the kind Max first showed them. She imagines everyone taking a turn with the cranks until their hands tire, and someone else takes over. It’s like a family from a storybook, a mom and a dad, two kids, and a baby who doesn’t get to turn the crank but is fascinated by the motion. “Someone’s gotta be.”

“You’re on the road, but you’ve got no destination…”

Dag agreed, “And even if they don’t find us tonight, there will be other nights.”

“And when we go on trade runs,” Cheedo offers.

“Yeah.” Dag grins. “We’ll advertise. Have Max talk us up at Bartertown too.”

“It’s a Beautiful Day. Don’t let it get away. It’s a beautiful day….”

“Do you think the signal goes that far?” Cheedo asks even though she doesn’t expect Dag to know any better than she does. For both of them the radio might as well be magic.

“It will. You saw Furiosa with that antenna.” Dag holds a finger to her forehead and shifts it like a fly’s antenna. “She’s not satisfied. She wants it better.”

Cheedo’s gaze drifts to Furiosa who looks lost in thought on her usual chair. Max is still behind her if not so close as he was before. He’s got that twitchiness about him they all sometimes get but Max most of all. It’s almost like he doesn’t know how to just relax and listen. 

“Touch me. Take me to that other place. Teach me. I know I’m not a hopeless case…”

The next time Cheedo looks up, Max and Furiosa are both gone, snuck off somewhere. 

“What you don’t have, you don’t need it now…”

As the song ends, Cheedo preps the record player for the song she’s chosen. Her hands shake as she slides the black disc from its sheath of thick but crumbling paper. She takes care not to further damage the paper; it’s come along way to reach this time, this place, like they all have. None of them are the same as when they started out, why should this bit of paper be any different? 

Cheedo and Dag exchange Max’s thumb sign before Dag announces, “Our Doof Corps is gonna take a break, but no worries, we’re gonna fill this After night with the voices of Before, long before our oldest old was born.”

Cheedo holds her breath as she lowers the delicate arm onto the record. The needle skips over a groove, until ancient voice demand, “R-E-S-P-E-C-T…”

“Yessiree mates,” Dag continues. “Listen to those Before Women.” She sets the handset down beside the record player and then wraps her arms around Cheedo. “We have a show. We have a show.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: [Beautiful Day](https://open.spotify.com/track/7ByeIcjAvk7BzN4WgrC7f0?si=M-ORnYu7QjOc4J_YI5_MAg)


	29. Thunder Road

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one never made it to Tumblr: world premiere right here folks.

The music from the roof follows Furiosa just as she follows Max. It twists and turns its way through narrow passages and broad corridors, across bridges of rope and down ladders of metal. The songs change, alternating between the power cords of the Doof Corps, the scratchy whine of the record player, and the rambunctious drumming and whooping of the Vuvalini with the acoustic drums and guitars. Furiosa hums along, pleased at the clarity her voice acquires when it bounces off the stone. 

Max stops at his car in the garage and just stares ahead. The matte black paint he’s painstakingly reapplied still bounces some lamplight. Furiosa waits in silence for him to notice her, but even when he does, neither says a word.

“Roy Orbison sings for the lonely. Hey, that’s me and I want you only,” sings the party on the roof over a scratchy record. “Don’t send me home again. I just can’t face myself alone again.”

Furiosa slides down the wall to sit. The stone is cool against her back. She’s tired; these days she always seems to be tired. She bends one knee and rests her short arm on it with her chin on top of that. She hums along with the music, singing softly on the parts she remembers best, like, “Maybe we ain’t that young anymore.” 

Max looks for work where there is none. He leans close to the car and rubs his fingers over any potential flaw in the finish. He probably meant to leave, at least for a moment, but that moment is passed. He is humming too, and Furiosa is pleasantly surprised that they might know the same song. 

Furiosa catches his gaze and smirks in the shadows as she sings, “You ain’t a beauty, but yeah, you’re alright.” She gives an affectionate scoff. “And that’s alright with me.”

Max turns away, hiding a smirk, and Furiosa assumes the moment is passed. Then he sings back at her with a voice both expectedly raw and unexpectedly rich, “Well now, I ain't no hero, that's understood. All the redemption I can offer, girl, is beneath this dirty hood.”

Maybe it’s the joyous energy of the night, but Furiosa feels playful enough to croon, “With a chance to make it good somehow. Hey, what else can we do now?” She belts out the next bit, letting her voice bounce freely off the stone walls because damn if it doesn’t sound like the best idea ever, “Except roll down the window and let the wind blow back your hair.”

Max plays along, shaking out the bit of growth he’s acquired atop his head. Now that he’s finally had a wash, it’s starting to curl. Then he smiles, a real, genuine smile with lips parted, teeth showing, eyes creasing, and Furiosa has to smile back. 

Fuck if her heart isn’t pounding. Fuck if her palm isn’t sweating when Max sings, “Oh oh, come take my hand. We're riding out tonight to case the promised land.”

Max squirms beneath his leather jacket. It probably smells of the road, like dust and oil, sand and smoke… and sweat, a little salty, a little sour. He’s still wearing her scarf too, and she wonders if it smells like him now where it used to smell like her. It’s been so many places since she gave it to him. Meanwhile she’s gone there and back to Gastown and Bullet Farm countless times while the open wasteland awaits. Sun on her skin… road hum in her bones… Max at her side… open desert stretching to the horizon… what could be better? 

She closes her fingers around that scarf and tugs as she sings, “Oh oh oh oh, Thunder Road…” until Max stops her mouth with his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: Thunder Road


	30. Heroes

The Citadel vodka is strong; it stings Furiosa’s eyes when she holds it too close to her face. She blinks deliberately. This is just the way she likes it.

She sits with her legs folded around the cup. “So this is the ocean…” 

It’s tar-black and thick with salt; she thinks she finally understands that poem Miss Giddy read to the girls once, the one that went, “Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.”

Max nods and shifts his weight. He’s in a low crouch as if he’s expecting a monster to leap out from the waves like in the stories. He fidgets, rubbing grains of sand between his fingers. 

“It’ll look bigger in the morning,” he promises. 

Furiosa doesn’t need the ocean any bigger; it’s already plenty big enough and darker and deeper than any water she’s ever seen before. “You can swim in that?” she asks, unsure what answer she wants to hear. 

“Can swim in any water… doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.”

Furiosa lowers her chin as the ocean spits salt water in her face. “In the morning then?” She didn’t drive with the War Boys for nothing. 

Max did promise he would teach her someday. Her heart pounds at the thought; she’s only ever floated before, and that water only reached to her waist when she was maybe three thousand days old. That was as deep as the Green Place river ever got. Their river was broad and shallow, thick with mud, but it got the job done. Even as it turned more and more brackish with each passing year, it brought life.

Max curls himself around her, arms draped on her shoulders. She slips off her prosthesis for his comfort and her own while making a note to clean it especially carefully to keep it from rusting. He kisses her cheek and pulls her closer, which strikes her as sweet until she realises he’s only stealing the vodka cup. She musses his hair in retaliation. 

The night is filled with rhythm, the sound of water moving, of the air rushing in and out of Max’s lungs, the wind whispering… It’s nothing like the silence of the desert. That doesn’t mean there’s life here; so far Furiosa has only seen sun-bleached bones poking out of the sand. She always pictured the ocean differently, full of fish and birds and bugs…

“Things live in the ocean, right?” she asks.

Max shrugs. “At least they used to.” Then he softens. “Sharks, crocs, those fellas have been there for millions of years. They’ll outlive us all.” 

She knows such beast aren’t keeping him on edge. Something else is doing that. She lets him keep the vodka a little while longer. It must be working: she finds herself swaying with the tide. Her weight drifts forward and back. It’s a pleasant feeling, not unlike riding over smooth hills but without the lift and fall in the belly. Her eyes drift closed. 

“And dolphins…” Max muses. “Dolphins are cunts – they must have survived.”

Furiosa rests her chin on her hand as she tries to remember a picture of a dolphin or even a shark. She remembers crocs with their big teeth and little limbs. They found their way to the Green Place from time to time and ended up as stews and boots.

“I…”Max starts. Furiosa looks over and sees him reach for his pack as he mumbles, “I wish you could swim… Like the dolphins… Like dolphins can swim.” He stops when he finds his cassette player and then hums a bit more until he finds just the right tape. 

Furiosa shrugs and snatches the vodka bottle from his lap. After a sip, she leans back, taking its place. He opens his legs for her and finds room in his jacket for her shoulders. She closes her eyes again, this time with Max’s heartbeat in one ear, the ocean in the other. 

And above them both, a soaring melody rides like wind over hills, and a voice from days long gone sings, “Though nothing, nothing will keep us together… We can beat them, forever and ever. Oh, we can be heroes just for one day…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heroes


End file.
